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EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Tuesday, October 3, 1995

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[English]

The Chair: Ladies and gentlemen, since we do have a quorum, we will begin this morning's session.

Pursuant to the consideration of the objections filed on the proposed electoral boundaries for the Atlantic provinces, we will begin with the first witness, the Hon. Fernand Robichaud, member of Parliament for Beauséjour. We will allow approximately fifteen minutes and then open to questions from committee members.

You may proceed, Mr. Robichaud.

[Translation]

The Honourable Fernand Robichaud, MP (Beauséjour): Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mrs. Wayne, Mr. Cummins and McGuire,

[English]

since you have started to hear members make presentations to your subcommittee in relation to the new proposals for New Brunswick, you are probably well aware that the commission proposed a total redrawing of the map in New Brunswick.

I am not in agreement with that total redrawing of the map because, as you know, the northern part of New Brunswick, where there were three ridings, now has two ridings.

In other places in the province such as my riding, there is a major over-drawing. The parishes of Saint-Louis and Saint-Charles in the north end of my riding of Beauséjour are included with what's north of the Miramichi. On the south side of the riding, the county of Albert, which has always been represented and tied in with Fundy - Royal, is also put in the riding of Beauséjour.

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When you look at the present map of New Brunswick, there are two ridings that are over the limit. Moncton and Fredericton are over that 25%. I would like to think that changes could have been made without going into such major redrafting of the map, of the boundaries.

If we look at Beauséjour, the riding I represent, there are major changes. I don't think that the commission, the majority report, took into consideration the community of interests of the people of Beauséjour when they recommended these changes.

My recommendations would be more in line with the minority report, which makes recommendations for minor changes to bring the ridings within the acceptable limits. It does not propose major changes.

One of the changes recommended for Beauséjour is, as I was saying a minute ago, the exclusion of the parishes of Saint-Louis and Saint-Charles. This, of course, is where I live. The effect of that redrawing would have me in another riding, but that's not the point here.

I draw your attention to the fact that following the 1981 census, there was a commission. The people of Saint-Louis, Saint-Charles, and Saint-Ignace made very strong recommendations to the commission of the day because at that time there was also a proposition to have Saint-Louis included with Miramichi. The commission understood then that this was not the right thing to do for the simple reason that people in Saint-Louis and Saint-Charles have a natural tendency to do all of their business in Richibucto, Buctouche and the Moncton area.

If you look at the development councils or the industrial commissions, the people of Saint-Louis and Richibucto, and even for that matter of Acadieville and Rogersville, are represented on the Kent Industrial Commission, which works out of Buctouche. There is a natural tendency to do business with Kent County.

At one time the parish of Acadieville was also with Beauséjour - Westmorland - Kent but was changed to north of Miramichi. The people don't feel as if they're really part of that riding because their natural attachment is to Kent County.

The second major redrawing is the inclusion with Beauséjour of the county of Albert. This county has, I would say, been very well represented in the past by the member for Fundy - Royal.

Some people might make the argument about language, mostly English-speaking people, but I will also bring to your attention that the part of the riding taking in Sackville, Dorchester and Port Elgin is mostly English-speaking. Somehow they are part of the natural community of Beauséjour.

There are no links between the community in the south of Westmorland County - Sackville and Dorchester - and the community of Albert, which is across the Petitcodiac River. People don't do business together because of this natural separation.

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To have the people of Albert brought in with Beauséjour would add a lot of territory to Beauséjour, and of course people, which would add to the fardeau of the member to represent those people properly.

There is no community of interest with the people of Beauséjour. I would be most happy to represent them, but I don't think they would be fairly represented by a person from Beauséjour. I think that natural representation should be from Fundy - Royal.

I also noticed that in the majority report the changes they have made give us a map of some ridings. On the side of urban ridings, the numbers have been brought down to, if we look at Fredericton - York - Sunbury, 71,000; Saint John, 75,000; and Moncton, 83,000. One of the biggest ridings in New Brunswick is Acadie - Bathurst, with 87,000, which is mostly a rural riding. Beauséjour is up there with 81,000.

I'm sure that you people understand very well that for a member a lot more displacement is involved when you represent a rural riding than when you represent an urban one, for the simple reason that the territory is not as vast and there is more concentration.

The majority report didn't take into consideration urban versus rural. I would like to make the point that I have to travel a lot more to represent 80,000 people - or I would say right now about 70,000 in Beauséjour - for the riding is 100 miles long - although the roads are very good and I can't complain about that - than the member from Moncton would have to travel in order to give good representation to his people, just because of the territory.

Of course, the nature of the work of a member in a rural riding is somewhat different than it is for an urban riding. It is not that one or the other works more or less than the other. There is a different rapport just because of the distance a person has to travel in order to meet with his constituents.

This is why I would like to recommend the minority report as to the boundaries and the recommendations it makes in relation to Beauséjour. Professor Ouellette's recommendation is that some parts of Westmorland that are within the riding of Moncton should now be rolled into Beauséjour. That was done at the last commission report, whereby some parts of Westmorland that were with Moncton, such as Moncton Parish, were redrawn in Beauséjour. This would take about 8,000 people away from Moncton to lower it within the acceptable level, which would bring me up to about 76,000, which would be very good, just above the New Brunswick average.

This is the presentation I would like you to take into consideration when you make your recommendation to the committee.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Robichaud, for those comments.

Mr. Cummins.

Mr. Cummins (Delta): I have to go to make my presentation at the other meeting.

The Chair: Mrs. Wayne.

Mrs. Wayne (Saint John): The recommendation of the commission would give you a population of 80,959, or is that what you have now?

Mr. Robichaud: No, I have about 69,000.

Mrs. Wayne: You have about 69,000, and they're recommending bringing yours up to 80,959.

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Mr. Robichaud: That's right. The minority report would -

Mrs. Wayne: Would give you 76,751. Are there any changes in the minority report from where you stand right now, or does it just leave it the same as it is right now?

Mr. Robichaud: There are changes. The minority report recommends that part of the riding that is now represented by Moncton, which is Salisbury Parish....

If you look at the present drawing of the Moncton riding, it's almost like a corkscrew, and the handle is Salisbury Parish. That would be rolled in with Beauséjour. This is rural; this is agricultural. There is forestry over there, and I think they would blend well with the rest of the people.

I think there is a community of interest, but I submit that for the people in Albert County it would be a little out of the way. I think they are very well represented right now and have been in the past by being with Fundy - Royal.

Mrs. Wayne: Thank you very much.

Mr. McGuire (Egmont): Beauséjour today is 70-30 francophone-anglophone?

Mr. Robichaud: I would say 65-35.

Mr. McGuire: And what would it be if you were to lose Saint-Charles and Saint-Louis and gain Albert?

Mr. Robichaud: I would say Saint-Louis and Saint-Charles are 99% French-speaking, while Albert is mostly English-speaking. So it would change the rapport between the two.

Mr. McGuire: Fairly dramatically, wouldn't it?

Mr. Robichaud: Yes, because I think almost all of the 10,000 people I would receive would be of English-speaking background.

Mr. McGuire: As far as natural resources are concerned, you would be losing the fishing communities in the northern part of your riding. What would you be gaining from Albert - some fishing?

Mr. Robichaud: Very little.

Mr. McGuire: It would be a different kind of fishing. It would be the Bay of Fundy fishery.

Mr. Robichaud: It would be the Bay of Fundy. It's in a different zone, but now it's all put together in the maritime zone.

Compared to Northumberland Strait, as you are very well aware, Mr. McGuire, the fishing is not quite the same, and that is a community of interest in itself. All along the coast of Northumberland Strait from Westmorland way up to Kent, the people fish together, be they English-speaking or French-speaking. It doesn't make too much difference; they fish the same grounds in the strait.

Mr. McGuire: In the same season too.

Mr. Robichaud: Yes.

Mr. McGuire: So when the meetings were held in the communities, the communities told the commission this was not acceptable?

Mr. Robichaud: There were some presentations made to the commission, and most of the presentations didn't go in the same line as the majority report. Most of the presentations recommended minor changes more in line with the minority report.

I have to say that in my area some of the municipalities didn't make representations because at the time there was a bill before the House to name a new commission, which would start over again. Given that, the people were saying, we're going to wait until the next commission is in place so we can make our representations to that commission. So there certainly would have been more representations.

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As I was saying earlier, in the early 1980s, when that proposition was made to shift Saint-Louis and Saint-Charles to the Northumberland riding - the Miramichi riding - there was quite a bit of opposition to that proposition. So the commission of the day didn't see fit to make the recommendation.

Mr. McGuire: Basically the commission went against the community of interest.

Mr. Robichaud: In the case of Beauséjour, I would say yes for the parishes of Saint-Louis and Saint-Charles, which are at the northern boundary of the riding. I would also submit that the community of interest the people of Albert would be tied in with Fundy - Royal more than with Beauséjour.

Mrs. Wayne: Madam Chair, may I ask what the population is of Saint-Louis and Saint-Charles?

Mr. Robichaud: As for the parish of Saint-Louis, I don't have those number with me, Mrs. Wayne, but I would say the village of Saint-Louis is about 1,200 people, while the parish is 450 families. There would be, I would say, 3,000 or 4,000 people there.

Mrs. Wayne: Okay.

Mr. McGuire: What about Acadieville and Carleton?

Mr. Robichaud: They used to be with Westmorland - Kent, but because of the numbers in the Miramichi riding, which are low, they were moved into that riding. Still, those people in Acadieville and Carleton are on the edge and their community of interest is also mostly with Kent County because they are represented on the Kent Industrial Commission in Buctouche rather than with the Northumberland or Miramichi area.

The Chair: That was a comment I was going to ask, Fern. What if the county line was used as it comes across Acadieville and Carleton so that Kent, which you say has a common interest in economic development...? I'm very familiar with that whole shore in terms of the common fishing industry because it extends right down to my shore in the next riding - there's the lobster and the shellfish industry - as a continuation to Northumberland Strait. But would that have done the same thing if you had extended across the county line separating Rogersville and Acadieville and then left Albert serving the Saint John and Moncton cities?

Mr. Robichaud: As I was saying, at one time the civil parishes of Acadieville and Carleton were with Westmorland - Kent. I think for a few elections they have been represented by the member from Miramichi.

Mr. McGuire: That Moncton loses Salisbury makes sense; you gaining Salisbury would make sense. That would be basically a rural area attached to a city right now.

Mr. Robichaud: That is the present situation. Petitcodiac and Salisbury are two villages that you would compare maybe with Buctouche or Saint-Louis.

Mr. McGuire: So your picking that up makes a lot of common sense.

Mr. Robichaud: Right now my boundary is the Moncton Parish and Salisbury Parish boundaries. I take the north side of the Trans-Canada Highway, which would just give me a bit more territory and about 8,000 people in that case. They are, first of all, in Westmorland County. Most of them do their business in Moncton, which is agriculture and forestry. There's not very much fishing there except for freshwater fishing. I would say those people already have some ties with the people in Westmorland County.

The Chair: Having seen what time we have left, we would thank you, Mr. Robichaud. We appreciate your comments and the value of the community interests you've presented.

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Mr. Robichaud: I want to thank you, Madame la présidente, and I'm sure you will see that Beauséjour could certainly be drawn in such a way as to respect the aspirations of the people of that part of the province. Thank you. Merci beaucoup.

The Chair: Thank you.

Our next witness is Madame Pierrette Ringuette-Maltais, the member of Parliament for Madawaska - Victoria.

Mr. McGuire: The republic of Madawaska.

The Chair: Whatever you choose.

Pierrette, we are allowing from fifteen to twenty minutes if you wish to make an opening statement, and then we'll allow questions from the committee members.

Mrs. Pierrette Ringuette-Maltais, MP (Madawaska - Victoria): First of all, I would like to thank you for the opportunity, on behalf of all the citizens of the Madawaska - Victoria riding, to voice their concern with the report submitted by two of the federal electoral boundaries commissions for the province of New Brunswick. This report also has a minority report from one of the three board members in regard to the riding of Madawaska - Victoria.

You should also have received a copy of my objection, which I have attached to a copy of the report I am giving you right now. There is also a report objecting to changes to the Madawaska - Victoria riding by la Société des Acadiens et Acadiennes de Nouveau-Brunswick on September 28, 1995. The society has a membership of over 20,000.

The population of Madawaska - Victoria strongly agrees with the minority report by Roger Ouellette, PhD, vice-chair of the New Brunswick commission, as attached on pages 18 and 19 of said report. Even though a New Brunswicker presented briefs before the commission on very minor changes, two commission members submitted a report recommending major changes, indicating that they were not really listening to the population.

As the vice-chair, Mr. Ouellette stated:

The commissioner recommends only minor changes to the ridings of Moncton and Fredericton - York - Sunbury. I support his recommendation. The commission also failed to consider the natural demographics and geography of northwest New Brunswick in its proposal for a new riding called Madawaska - Restigouche, since 150 miles inland of forest separate these two counties and their respective communities.

The county of Madawaska - Victoria is bordered by the Saint John River valley, the province of Quebec, and the state of Maine. The majority report recommends Madawaska - Restigouche. You can see that there's a natural geographical separation between these two counties. It's all forest. Now, if you go from Saint-François in the county of Madawaska to Belledune, which is in the other part, the Restigouche County, you would have over 400 kilometres of distance between the two ends of the Madawaska - Restigouche riding.

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So that's just to give you a view of this. Madame la présidente, I can give you this if you'd like.

The Chair: Perhaps you could pass it around, too.

Mrs. Ringuette-Maltais: Yes, okay.

The riding of Madawaska - Victoria is naturally united by major highways, the Saint John River Valley, and federal service centres. I'll state a few of them that I have not noted in the written presentation: Human Resources Development centres, Fisheries, ACOA, Transportation, Immigration, Customs, native services, and Agriculture. All those federal services are designed to serve the population of Madawaska - Victoria together.

Also, historical, social, educational, economic, and cultural ties bind us together. In addition to federal services, two industrial commissions serve both of these counties mixed together. There are the provincial school board, a community college, and Community Futures, which is now a business centre. So whether you're looking at federal, provincial or community-bound services, they're all designed to serve the community of interest which is Madawaska - Victoria.

Your subcommittee should, with respect for the population of Madawaska - Victoria and also for the population of Restigouche, recommend in favour of Dr. Roger Ouellette's minority report or repeal the report of the Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission for the province of New Brunswick.

I am now open for questions. I know there was limited time, so I've tried to limit my comments.

The Chair: Thank you, Pierrette. We have had your written comments and we do appreciate those as well as your respect of time.

I'll open the floor to questions from the honourable Elsie Wayne.

Mrs. Wayne: Pierrette, what is the population that you serve at the present time?

Mrs. Ringuette-Maltais: It's roughly 55,000, and it's all rural. I have only one city in the riding; that's the city of Edmundston, which you know very well, and that city has a population of under 10,000.

Mrs. Wayne: The recommendation is to bring you up to -

The Chair: To 73,000. Is this Madawaska - Restigouche?

Mrs. Ringuette-Maltais: Yes, that would be from Madawaska - Restigouche. That would be over 400 kilometres of distance.

I guess one item that I've neglected to add in my written submission, because it was written in the minority report, was the fact that there's more to providing service and democracy to the population than arithmetic. I guess that once you have been involved in politics and in serving the population, you are more aware of that. I congratulate Mr. Ouellette and his minority report for stating the fact that there's more than arithmetic involved here. It's the quality of service you can provide, especially the community interest, which is economic, social, and historical.

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For a long period of time Madawaska - Restigouche was a federal riding, but it was changed in 1966 because the population did not feel the boundaries were well divided within the province or were well served within the community of interest.

I can tell you there is a very special dynamic between the counties of Madawaska and Victoria, between both the anglophone and the francophone community.

Mrs. Wayne, I think you will most appreciate that.

When a community council like the one in Perth-Andover asks me to help them in providing intensive French training for the adult population because they want to do more and more business with the francophone community, I praise them. I praise them and I will help them do it because it's the natural flow.

In the county of Madawaska most of population can speak English, and we now have a good portion of the county of Victoria that feels very much at ease with that language also.

Mrs. Wayne: So 1966 was the last time the boundaries were changed.

Mrs. Ringuette-Maltais: Yes, when it was changed from Madawaska - Restigouche to Madawaska - Victoria.

Mrs. Wayne: Thank you.

Mr. McGuire: I guess it would be an understatement to say these are dramatic changes.

Mrs. Ringuette-Maltais: Absolutely dramatic changes.

Mr. McGuire: With the Saint John River, the natural communication is always north-south.

Mrs. Ringuette-Maltais: Yes. The Saint John River has always been the major trading economic route. Therefore all the communities along that river, meaning all the communities in Madawaska County and Victoria County and also some also in Carleton County, have a natural link together.

The river was there before the population was; it's more than historic.

Mr. McGuire: So basically from the beginnings of the history of that area it has always been north-south; it has never been east-west.

Mrs. Ringuette-Maltais: No, never.

Mr. McGuire: You were saying there should be more consideration and that there's more than arithmetic involved here.

Mrs. Ringuette-Maltais: Definitely. Arithmetic is just a very minor aspect when you look at boundary changes.

The most important aspect when you look at federal electoral boundaries is the population. You are at the service of the population. You are not at the service of figures. You are dealing with human beings. You're not dealing with arithmetic.

That, for me, is the most important thing. In the community of interest, which is dealing with human beings, people on a collective side are extremely important, and that should be the main objective. It is also specified in the act.

The Chair: I have just one question, Pierrette. I noticed on the map you passed around here that the new highway connecting Dalhousie and Campbellton over to Edmundston -

Mrs. Ringuette-Maltais: There's no new highway from there. The four-lane highway goes from the Quebec border through Edmundston and down along the counties of Madawaska and Victoria. It follows the Saint John River.

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The Chair: I'm familiar with that, but I thought they had expanded that highway. We know we're losing population in the northeast part of New Brunswick, and I wondered if it had moved to Edmundston.

Mrs. Ringuette-Maltais: In regard to population growth, I do foresee more of our youth in the northwest remaining in the northwest. Maybe some who have moved outside of the province will come back to the northwest because of new major investment in capital, new businesses, and manufacturing in both counties of Madawaska and Victoria.

In the last two years we have seen major new initiatives. Manufacturing buildings are now in the construction stage. We also have the Fraser pulp mill in Edmundston, which is in the process of building a co-generating project attached to its mill. It's an investment of $148 million that will create over 400 new jobs just in that area.

So I do foresee additional population in the area in the next four or five years.

The Chair: On behalf of the committee members, we thank you for coming before us this morning. We will certainly take your written statements as well as your oral statement this morning into due consideration.

Mrs. Ringuette-Maltais: Thank you very much for taking the time to accept my comments.

The Chair: We welcome Paul Zed, the member for Fundy - Royal. You may begin at any time.

Mr. Paul Zed, MP (Fundy - Royal): Thank you, Madam Chair, colleagues.

I had previously circulated my concerns to the chairman of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. I believe you should have them in your materials, and I can outline them very briefly.

I have become concerned generally by the thrust of the majority versus the minority report as well, as I've listened to my colleagues previously. As we know, the goal of any commission should be to create the minimum disruption of the established electoral districts. In fact, that is a direct quote out of the majority report, and frankly, I think this has created the maximum disruption that could possibly have been created.

The majority report of the commission failed to take into consideration the community interests of the residents of Fundy - Royal who are being moved into other ridings. Albert County, as many of you know, has long been included in Fundy - Royal because it is separated from the Beauséjour riding by the Petitcodiac River and by language. In fact, several years ago Albert County was part of what was known as Saint John - Albert. The residents have a greater affiliation with the constituents in Fundy - Royal or in Moncton, where many shop and do business.

The second point I wish to make relates to south of the Saint John River, the parishes of Gagetown, Hampstead and Greenwich are isolated from Charlotte County by CFB Gagetown, which as everyone knows is Canada's largest military training facility.

The area residents there would feel a greater affinity with the communities of Kings and Queens Counties and the town of Oromocto or the city of Fredericton. They really don't have much affinity with Carleton - Charlotte as it has been proposed. The two larger centres there, St. Stephen or Woodstock, are literally hundreds of miles away.

By the same token, I believe that those who are living in the parish of Westfield and Petersville shop, work and do business in the city of Saint John. So if you were looking for a community of interest, you might have considered moving in that direction as opposed to putting them into Carleton - Charlotte.

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If Fundy - Royal needs to be reduced in size, then one wonders why they never looked at the parishes of St. Martins or Simonds, which may better be served by the riding of Saint John. The parishes of Westfield and Petersville, as I said earlier, do the bulk of their business in the city of Saint John. However, even though they are geographically perhaps closer to the riding of Carleton - Charlotte as it exists, they just don't have a community of interest there.

In my view the commission's majority report erred in using the electoral quota as the sole factor in determining electoral districts, and they failed to give adequate consideration to the demographics of Fundy - Royal and indeed most of New Brunswick. I believe the recommendation on the minority report by the vice-chairman, Dr. Ouellette, has a great deal of merit, and that if changes do have to be made, the recommendations I've submitted to you should be given full consideration.

Colleagues, that's my presentation.

Mrs. Wayne: Mr. Zed, in The Hill Times there was a statement made by Bonnie Brown from Oakville - Milton about her riding and the changes. She said: ``I did very well in those northern polls and it was advantageous to me''. She said changes to her riding cut out areas that strongly support the Liberals.

Do you think that has anything to do with some of the recommendations here - that people feel safe in their riding now and for political reasons they don't want to make the changes?

Mr. Zed: Absolutely not. If that were the case, one would want to look at the political underwear of the commissioners.

If you wanted, Mrs. Wayne, to question the commissioners in New Brunswick, you would have to ask yourself what their previous political persuasion was and why they would have done what they did. I would suggest to you that there might have been some political reasons consistent with the philosophy of a previous government that were more directed as to what was done at the time.

Mrs. Wayne: I asked that because she made that statement apparently publicly and I wondered why she would make such a statement or if it had been discussed anywhere as to the reasons for the submissions.

Mr. Zed: In reply to that, I'm a New Brunswicker, and I don't know what people in Ontario say about their electoral boundary commissions. I could only really speak to the New Brunswick commission; that's the only knowledge I have. I don't read The Hill Times's comments about Ontario electoral boundaries.

Mrs. Wayne: The other thing I'd like to ask is did any of the people in your riding make representation to the commission about the proposed changes after they were published in the paper, to your knowledge?

Mr. Zed: I don't believe they did. I did and I think our association submitted a written brief, but I could be corrected on that. I don't know the answer to that offhand.

Mrs. Wayne: The recommendations by the commission would bring the population you would represent within the number that supposedly is legal according to the Constitution, which is 70,836, and the minority report would bring it up to 89,863, which is beyond the legal increase of 25% above the norm. So to bring it within what should legally be there, what other changes would you recommend?

Mr. Zed: You and I are probably more familiar with the area than most of the other members in the room. You would well know it makes absolutely no sense for Grand Bay and Westfield to be in Carleton - Charlotte. Equally, there is a community of interest in Saint John County in terms of St. Martins, and I believe that line's changed a few times over the last number of years.

If we're being given an opportunity to express views, I think the bottom line is we're over-governed. Notwithstanding the Constitution, I think we have too many MPs and that New Brunswick and Atlantic Canada - all of Canada - could use far fewer MPs. Having said that, the number of 89,000 doesn't bother me.

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The suggestions I would make would be contained in my opening comments. You might consider the line across the bottom that includes them in Saint John. I recognize that I have one of the largest ridings in the province now in terms of population. As you well recognize, it's the fastest-growing area in the Kennebecasis Valley. From just the outskirts of Saint John through to Sussex is a very fast-growing area.

But we also have to recognize the community of interest and the rural areas. The Minto and Chipman parts of my riding tend to do more business and have more of a community of interest in the Fredericton area. I think a few modest changes could address the situation.

As far as I'm concerned, it made absolutely no sense for Albert County to go into Beauséjour. If the commissioners in their wisdom felt they wanted to do something with Albert County, they might have done something more in the Moncton area in terms of a community of interest. The government offices there are separated by Fundy National Park, which is a large tract of land as well.

I have my views, but it's just difficult to come in. It's like water displacing itself; you take from one area and you move it to another.

The Chair: Mr. McGuire.

Mr. McGuire: Mr. Zed, do you think there's a fair amount of social engineering going on here with these new boundaries? Take Albert away from you and take Saint-Louis and Saint-Charles away from Beauséjour and it almost looks like a deliberate decision here to integrate English and French in New Brunswick rather than staying in the community of interest and geographical continuities. There seems to be a deliberate move here to integrate the two linguistic populations.

Mr. Zed: I think it's important to remember that the two founding peoples of New Brunswick.... We're the only province in Canada that officially recognizes two linguistic groups of people, and we get along great. There's a perfect harmony.

There were obvious irritations, which have certainly been borne out in the last general election and been eliminated. The two traditional parties in our province have worked very well together in establishing a harmony of sorts, and frankly, certainly since 1960, the political organizations in the province have worked very hard at maintaining that balance or equilibrium.

In terms of social engineering, to use your expression, Mr. McGuire, I agree that somebody had a weird sense of humour if they thought they were going to redraw New Brunswick the way they have drawn it, because it makes no sense. I don't know one member of Parliament in New Brunswick who thinks this makes any sense, although I cannot speak for the member for Saint John.

Mrs. Wayne: I know a couple of others who think it makes sense, and they didn't make any presentations here.

Mr. McGuire: Mrs. Wayne referred to gerrymandering here, but it was more of a linguistic gerrymandering than a political gerrymandering.

Mr. Zed: Yes, I suspect that may be true, although I don't know. Certainly in our area it didn't make a lot of sense. When you put Grand Bay and Westfield, which I currently have, into Carleton County, it makes no sense. So that wasn't linguistic.

Gagetown and all of those areas are separated by the base there. It makes no sense to put those communities together, and that was not done for linguistic reasons.

They've moved Albert County, which is obviously the main chunk of one part of my riding - I think there are about 7,000 or 8,000 people but I've forgotten the number - off to my colleague from Beauséjour. I would suggest that would be an experiment, but they have absolutely nothing in common with Beauséjour.

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The Chair: Thank you Mr. McGuire.

I have a couple of questions, if I may. You mention St. Martins, and that is essentially a suburb of Saint John.

Mr. Zed: Well, I wouldn't call it a suburb, but it is closer to Saint John than.... Yes, it's closer to Saint John.

The Chair: My question is, if we took the Saint John County line and extended it over towards Alma, and gave that population area to Saint John, and allowed Albert...or use the county lines to simplify what I am trying to say here, would that diminish your population significantly and bring the numbers more in tandem?

Mr. Zed: The member for Saint John would know better, or would have as good an idea as I, but I would guess that it wouldn't be dramatic. I would think it's more like two or three thousand people, but it would be moving in the right direction.

In other words, if you were looking for more population from Saint John and you were looking for less population for Fundy - Royal, obviously the two ridings overlap. You could consider putting the Grand Bay-Westfield area and part of St. Martins into Saint John as a way to equalize Fundy - Royal; I don't know.

I was happy with the minority report. I am actually happy with the status quo. I like my riding; I am very satisfied with it. Politically I think I would continue to do well there as well, if it stayed exactly as it is.

The Chair: I think we're looking at numbers and community of interest more than the politics of the ridings. So I am just asking the question if the immediate area becomes more of a community of interest to Saint John, and as you have mentioned, Westfield and Grand Bay. I grew up in Carleton County and I know they have very little in common with the agricultural belt there. But you do have that massive growth of Sussex and that rural agricultural area in there. And as you say, the population is increasing there quite dramatically, so we have to look at the logistics of numbers somehow.

Mr. Zed: Sure. If you were trying to move things around a little bit, both the areas of Grand Bay-Westfield or St. Martins would have a community of interest with Saint John. I wonder if the member would agree me. I think she probably would.

I remember that previously - I think it was either Mr. Merrithew or before Mr. Merrithew - thatline was a little bit different. Perhaps I am wrong, but I thought that was the case. But it's not a heavily populated area, Madam Chair. St. Martins and Simonds parishes aren't heavily populated, but Grand Bay-Westfield is.

The Chair: I appreciate that. Are there further questions? Thank you.

Mr. Zed: Thank you, colleagues.

The Chair: Ladies and gentlemen, we have a bit of a problem here. Our next witness,Mr. LeBlanc, has been detained and will not be available until 10:45 a.m. That means we will have to go in camera if we use this time. We have 45 minutes in which we can review New Brunswick in camera, since we have completed the New Brunswick witnesses, or we can suspend and reconvene at 10:45 a.m. What is your pleasure?

Mrs. Wayne: Madam Chair, can I just ask what the procedure is after today, after we hear all the witnesses?

The Chair: We have to delegate some time and I will be out of the province tomorrow. So we will begin early Thursday morning to compile the recommendations for New Brunswick, and we've completed Newfoundland as you are aware. It will be necessary to compile the recommendations for the New Brunswick members and the one Nova Scotia member.

Mrs. Wayne: I have to leave tomorrow because of a funeral.

The Chair: Will you will be back on Thursday morning?

Mrs. Wayne: No, Madam Chair, I won't be back again this week. The funeral is on Thursday morning and I'm an honorary pallbearer and I must be there.

Mr. McGuire: We can deal with the recommendations right now. We've already done the recommendation for Newfoundland. If we do New Brunswick's now, there would be no need of any thrashing out on Thursday morning at all.

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The Chair: What creates a problem is that we're off next week and back in our ridings, as everyone can appreciate. This room must be vacated by 11 a.m., so we have an hour here to use prudently.

Perhaps then we should deal with New Brunswick.

[Proceedings continue in camera]

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PAUSE

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The Chair: Mr. LeBlanc, welcome to the committee.

We have to be out of this room by 11 a.m. I advise you to make your opening statement as brief as possible so committee members might have an opportunity to discuss some questions.

You may begin.

Mr. Francis G. LeBlanc, MP (Cape Breton Highlands - Canso): Thank you very much. I would like to thank the committee for allowing me to modify the time of my presentation this morning.

I'll quickly go over the main points of my objection to the proposed electoral boundaries in the area of eastern Nova Scotia and Cape Breton, which is constituted of the constituency of Cape Breton Highlands - Canso and surrounding constituencies affected by the redistribution.

I accept the need for periodic adjustment of electoral boundaries to reflect shifts in population, but these changes should also take into account local communities of interests and patterns of local economic development.

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I don't believe the boundaries proposed by the Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission for Nova Scotia in 1994 - particularly the second set, the revised set of boundaries - do that insofar as they affect eastern Nova Scotia and Cape Breton.

Why? The Strait of Canso, which has become the hub of economic activity for communities on both sides of the strait, would find itself split under the proposed changes. These communities would find themselves on the periphery of federal constituencies whose population centre of gravity is elsewhere.

In the case of western Cape Breton, the centre would be industrial Cape Breton, around Sydney and Glace Bay. In the case of Antigonish and Guysborough County, the centre would become Pictou County, where the bulk of the population is.

Both of these areas have the bulk of the population in their respective ridings, the bulk of government and business service, and are closest to airports. There will be an inevitable tendency for an MP to devote more attention to these parts of these constituencies to the detriment of the more rural areas on the eastern mainland and western Cape Breton Island.

In the case of industrial Cape Breton, where a new regional government has been established in order to focus efforts towards local economic development, the proposed federal boundaries run counter to this trend.

Instead of including all of Cape Breton County in one riding to give it a unified voice in federal representation in Ottawa, it will be needlessly split between two members, both of whom will have large parts of their constituencies elsewhere. This is particularly so with the revised boundaries proposed by the commission.

At the same time, people living in the predominantly rural part of Cape Breton Island in the counties of Victoria, Inverness, and Richmond will share their MP with the people living in a relatively more populous and concentrated urban part of Cape Breton, around Sydney and Glace Bay.

The attention of both MPs will be divided between parts of the constituency whose interests are vastly different. Because most of the people in the services live close to the airport, there will be an inevitable tendency for rural residents of Cape Breton to be underrepresented. That is the case on the Cape Breton side.

On the mainland side, a similar argument can be made. The centre of population is closest to the Halifax airport. This creates a problem for the rural part of both Cape Breton Island and eastern Nova Scotia. I believe they require a member of Parliament who has the rural part of the constituency predominantly at heart, by virtue of the fact that they don't share their representation with a concentrated node if that can be avoided.

Under the current situation, the rural parts of Cape Breton and eastern Nova Scotia are under the same constituency and therefore get fairly equal treatment because the constituency is predominantly rural. That's the nature of my problem with the proposed boundaries in this area.

The purpose of the legislation, which as I understand it would be to allow for the exercise to be reviewed with a new commission, is another reason that I've made this objection. I believe the whole exercise should be given a second look because of the fact that the initial report was done so quickly. There was not a proper opportunity for people in the area that I represent to make their views known.

Since the report has been released, many people have come to me in my constituency to say they would like to have had an opportunity to make their views known. They think their part of Cape Breton or their part of eastern Nova Scotia hasn't been properly reflected in these boundary changes. They say they would like to have an opportunity to make that point to a commission.

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So my plea to the committee is really to have the legislation that will make this possible passed as quickly as possible, to allow this exercise to be redone, and to have those views properly reflected.

I'll stop there, Madam Chair, to allow for questions.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. LeBlanc.

Mrs. Wayne.

Mrs. Wayne: This map we have with regard to Cape Breton Highlands - Canso...is there now one member or two members representing this area?

Mr. LeBlanc: One.

Mrs. Wayne: One, and you're it.

Mr. LeBlanc: Yes, I'm that soul.

Mrs. Wayne: Are they recommending that there be two?

Mr. LeBlanc: That's the status quo.

This is the map. They are recommending that the boundary line be split here and that there be two constituencies on Cape Breton Island. Right now there are two and a half. That's the half, the one that I represent, and there are two other constituencies, as you can see here. They are essentially splitting the island of Cape Breton into two constituencies, both of which would have a predominantly urban portion in the industrial Cape Breton area, then surrounded by a large part of rural Cape Breton.

This part of Cape Breton Island is called Cape Breton County. It's often referred to as industrial Cape Breton, although there's a rural portion there. This part is western Cape Breton and is quite different, in many ways, from industrial Cape Breton. My point is that the boundaries on Cape Breton would unnecessarily split communities of interest that currently exist on Cape Breton Island.

Mrs. Wayne: I know the Sydney area.

Mr. LeBlanc: Again, it's not with any sense of prejudice one way or another. It's really to recognize the tasks of members of Parliament representing urban as opposed to rural constituencies.

With rural constituencies, as I'm sure you know, even though you have an urban riding of your own, it's more difficult for them to get access to government services because the government services are far away. There are long-distance telephone calls. The member of Parliament is very often asked to do many things which, in an urban riding, somebody could just walk into a government office and get done by a government department.

So there are two points. One is that you have to have a smaller population in a rural riding to compensate for that. Second, I think it's helpful to have a rural riding that's rural, so that the member of Parliament understands the interests of -

Mrs. Wayne: Do you feel that the Strait of Canso should be a natural boundary line?

Mr. LeBlanc: No. It has become a hub of economic activity for the western part of Cape Breton Island, and development has occurred on both sides of the strait. So another problem is that this hub would be in a sense split between two constituencies, both of which would have their centre of gravity at the other end of the constituency.

Mrs. Wayne: You mentioned, Mr. LeBlanc, that you didn't feel the people had enough time to reply. The information we received shows that in accordance with subsection 19(2) of the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act, an advertisement was published in the Canada Gazette on March 12 and in 10 newspapers in Nova Scotia. They gave them until May 19 to make their presentations - from March till May 19. This is on page 3 of that report.

Mr. LeBlanc: Yes, I see it.

Mrs. Wayne: It wasn't high profile, perhaps.

Mr. LeBlanc: It certainly wasn't high profile. I think there are many people in the constituency who would very much like to have had an opportunity to make their views known on the final proposed adjustment, and that was not possible.

The Chair: Mr. McGuire, please.

Mr. McGuire: I take it, Madam Chair, that the reason some of these boundaries are changing is the decrease in the rural population of eastern Nova Scotia, Cape Breton, and an increase in the Halifax - Dartmouth area. So the Halifax - Dartmouth area is receiving another seat while we're losing one in eastern Nova Scotia and Cape Breton.

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The Chair: That's essentially where the drift in the movement of population has gone, yes.

Mr. McGuire: I wonder what the witness thinks of the fact that basically the rural area and the natural resources of the province, such as forestry and fishing, are losing representation while the urban area is increasing theirs.

The Chair: I just might explain to the other members that the newly created riding would be Sackville - Eastern Shore, as I understand it, because there's that movement of urban fringe population. What used to be three ridings in Cape Breton will now be condensed to two and we will still remain with eleven seats in Nova Scotia.

Mr. LeBlanc: As I said before, you can't base representation purely on population. Rural constituencies are by their very nature more demanding because the services of government offices very often don't exist in rural constituencies. Therefore the member of Parliament in a rural constituency is called upon to do more for each constituent than that person would be in an urban setting.

Second, the distances involved in a rural constituency are vastly different. Just to call a meeting very often involves hours of driving from one place to another. It makes it more difficult for a member of Parliament to represent his constituents in a rural setting as opposed to an urban setting.

It seems to me that the commission based too much of its judgment on purely a look at the population distribution in Nova Scotia. I don't believe the existing variance in existing ridings, particularly in eastern Nova Scotia, was that far out of line to justify the kinds of changes they proposed.

Mr. McGuire: I think that's the trend we're finding; the community of interest hasn't been followed in a number of provinces we've been looking at.

It seems to be that way here too. The Canso Strait area as a community has been split. The people in those areas are going to miss a lot of good contact with their member as far as representing their interests goes, whether it's fishing interests or mining interests or forestry interests. The population may be down some, but I think there's more to representing an area than just people. The geography and the resources should be represented also.

The Chair: Ladies and gentlemen, we must leave this room at this time. There's another meeting scheduled.

I thank the witness for presenting this morning.

We will have to meet outside.

Mr. LeBlanc: Thank you very much, Madam Chair and members of the committee, for this opportunity.

The Chair: We're adjourned.

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